


Letting the Days Go By (Same As It Ever Was)

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, Post-Season/Series Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23731756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: Steve visits some old friends, who help him see what he's always known.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Catherine Rollins, Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 53
Kudos: 373





	Letting the Days Go By (Same As It Ever Was)

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I still exist. Hi, nice to meet you.
> 
> Slow and steady sometimes comes in last place. I see there have been a billion and one of these already. Not sure how I feel about adding to it, but I needed to exorcise PL from my brain too. Haven't read anything else, this may be a complete re-do of other fixes. Unintentional. I also didn't want to disrespect any characters or their actions as laid out by aforementioned demon who isn't as clever or creative as he believes himself to be. Ahem. And that needed some time. Also marked m/m, but to be honest it could also just be two broken guys living platonically together forever because there is nothing wrong with that.
> 
> Current world events completely disregarded, because I'm exhausted by it all. Hope y'all are doing okay.
> 
> Title from Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime, but Mary, Kono and Chin are Steve's Three Little Birds here. (Their melodies pure and true.)

“So,” Mary said. “You’re really done. After all this time.”

LA had seemed like the best place to start his journey. He hadn’t seen Mary and Joanie for far too long, both he and his sister skilled in the art of making excuses. A family trait he wanted to correct. Steve hadn’t anticipated the company, but when Cath showed up to surprise him on the plane it felt like comfortable kismet. And he knew that Mary would welcome them both. As she did, albeit with an odd expression when she’d seen them together at the airport.

Truthfully, Steve had known it _was_ goodbye forever when he’d made his farewells back on Oahu but hadn’t been able to admit it to himself. Or anyone. It hadn’t mattered; he saw the second each and every one of his former team, his friends, had come to the realization, each of them well before his official _aloha_. And he somewhere inside he felt like he had wanted to care enough about their sadness to stay for them. The fact that he hadn’t was testament to his damage. He could recognize, catalogue and file it all away but not fully engage. A picture of Danny, looking more fragile than a man like him ever should, popped into his head. 

Even that. 

“Yeah, Mare, I think I really am,” Steve said.

Steve lifted his head, glanced over at her. They’d been sitting quietly in her small backyard lit with strings golden fairy lights. Joanie’s influence, he was sure. Mary wasn’t looking at him, her focus instead on the bottle of beer between her hands. Her face was shadowed, her hair picking up the tone of the lights. He looked at his own beer, rested precariously on the chair’s arm. He’d barely touched it, didn’t know why. He watched the condensation pool and then slide down the amber surface, caught up for a moment in the mundane beauty of the way the beads sparkled in the dim light.

They’d done touristy things for the last week, just him and Cath, Mary and Joanie. It’d been pedestrian and unnecessary. Mindless fun. Joanie’s youthful energy had bolstered them all through a silly day at Disneyland, an even sillier Hollywood stars tour (Steve had no context), the Santa Monica Pier. Steve had felt almost like a normal human, at least during the activities. In the quiet and dark, after Joanie crashed hard and they settled into night, his ghosts returned to haunt despite Mary’s attempts to keep things light and Cath’s warmth next to him.

Life really had shat on him for the better part of a decade. Longer than that, actually. In the grand scheme, looking at it with retrospective eyes, his life even before his father was murdered within his earshot, hadn’t been his own. Essentially nothing beyond the age of sixteen was anything Steve felt now had been distinctly his call. He’d needed structure, joined the military which told him what to do and when to do it. A simplification of life, base choices made and everything else laid out for him.

“Good.” 

Mary sounded almost defiant, and it drew his attention to her fully again. In that one word Steve heard a lifetime of emotion, and it confused him for a second. Then it didn’t because Mary stared back at him, her eyes luminous and big. She was an eleven year old again, being shipped off without him to Aunt Deb. She was also that same girl who cycled through so many jobs, so many heartaches, so much lashing out at the world and getting into trouble. Seeking attention, any attention, after being sent away from the only person she’d needed it from. Yes, this was where he’d had to come.

He wasn’t the only McGarrett who’d endured too much.

“Tell me how you really feel,” Steve said, wryness in his tone. He did take a swig of beer at that, it tasted smooth but somehow bitter as well. He wondered how long it would take for even something like enjoying beer to happen. “Don’t hold back.”

She snorted at that. She was right; if there was one thing about Mary that held through their whole lives, it was that she didn’t pull her punches. Where his emotions had retreated behind barriers, all structure all the time, hers were always on her sleeve.

“I just,” Mary said. “It’s taken a toll on you, Steve. Anyone could see that. And maybe we’re not exactly the Brady Bunch, but hearing about all your cases – sometimes seeing it on the news, sometimes the stuff that was shit Mom and Dad left you – it’s not that easy to not worry. You know?”

Dad’s voice breaking as he said his final words, the crack of a gunshot.

Doris bleeding out, gasping her last breaths. 

Danny lying a pool of blood, barely breathing.

“Yeah.” His voice cracked. He tried to cover it with a throat clear. “I know.”

For a moment or two they resumed sitting in companionable silence. If Steve half closed his eyes, the twinkly lights reminded him of lightning bugs he’d seen once but couldn’t remember where or when. Well into adulthood, but the wonder of them had struck him even then. He made a note, added lightning bugs to his mental to-do list. He kept adding random things. Maybe something would stick. Maybe something would settle this thing inside him he couldn’t even name. Give him that sense of peace he so desperately yearned for.

“I assume you’ve got this soul searching thing all planned out to the last,” Mary said after a bit, like she was reading his thoughts.

The only thing he’d actually scheduled was the visit with her, and as wonderful as it had been Steve sensed she was about ready for her life’s routines to return. Cath had left yesterday, with a bittersweet farewell at the airport. If she could, she promised she’d hook up with him again later. That gave him something to look forward to, even though watching her disappear through a revolving door had provoked a feeling not of anticipation but an unreasonable feeling of betrayal. Stupid, because he knew she had her own life, knew that the only reason she’d been on that plane was Lincoln Cole reaching out to her for help with the damned cipher, Doris’s final attempt at … assuaging her guilt, post-mortem. Still, seeing Cath had given him _some_ thing back. 

It wasn’t enough. Not yet.

“Not really, no,” Steve said. “I might just get in a car and drive. I thought about international. Ireland, maybe.”

“And when you’re done wandering around, what then? What will you do then?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure.”

“Okay, now I’m really worried. Steve McGarrett, not sure. No plan.”

Steve knew she was trying to be flippant. He closed his eyes. How he wished for an easy answer, for that elusive serenity to envelope him. For some reason, a lump formed in is throat. He nearly startled when Mary’s fingers wrapped around his, warm and soft, and Steve held on tightly. 

“I’m so damn tired, Mary,” he said, not meaning to reveal anything; she knew him as he knew her and when her fingers twitched a little he knew she already knew. He swallowed a few times. “I just want something normal, you know? I don’t know. That cliché happily ever after, maybe.”

“Hmm,” Mary said. “Like white picket fence, perfect spouse, two great kids and a dog?”

“Something like that. Yeah. That’s not too much to ask, is it?” 

In his own ears, it rang hollow. He was sure he wasn’t the only one. Mary squeezed his hand back, and again they fell quiet. The city’s noises were different to Honolulu's, the mainland feeling like foreign soil to him at the moment. He hadn’t wanted to go abroad though. No Asian country held allure, the mid-East and Africa were out, South and Central America, too. Steve had seen and done too much throughout the whole world, too many classified and non-classified memories. It would make Danny laugh hysterically if Steve ruled everywhere out except New Jersey. He smiled a little at that thought, the image of his partner’s giddy smile.

“That would all be with … Catherine?” Mary asked.

Something in her tone made him open his eyes, found her staring at him. Her expression hearkened back to the one she’d had when he had first landed in LA. Mary looked back at him, nothing but curiosity on her face. Except Steve knew her.

“Maybe. Yeah. Sure.”

“Hmm.” Mary took a healthy gulp of beer, finishing hers off.

Steve let out a huffed breath. There it was. Mary wanted to say something, and that something was probably about to explain that funny look she had.

“What, you like Catherine,’’ he said. “She’d be a great mom. Joanie likes her.”

“Sure, I do. She seems nice enough. And Joanie likes just about everyone, you gotta take everything from that one with a grain of kid-sized salt. If Cath makes you happy, I’m happy.”

Now she sounded disingenuous. 

“Mary.”

“Steve.”

“Mary.”

“Okay, look. Hear me out. I do like Catherine, she’s you in female form. I just want you to think about something while you’re looking for yourself out there.” Mary stood, started to gather up the area. She wrapped a light blanket around her shoulders, getting ready to head in for the night. “In the past ten years, since we started talking again, I bet I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve spoken about Cath with me. That includes when you two were actually together, together. In that same amount of time, I can’t even begin to put a figure on the number of times you mentioned someone else.”

Mary went over and unplugged the lights, leaving the back yard lit by the dim street lights. She shuffled back to him, awkwardly touched his shoulder as she leaned down to kiss his temple.

“Something to consider, that’s all. Maybe peace can’t be found in a where,” Mary whispered into his ear, a parting shot. “Good night, Steve.” 

In true infuriating little sister style, Mary then left Steve sitting there with new thoughts swirling in his head.

H50H0H50

He stood in the Devil’s Garden, Arches National Park, sweating under a hot sun. It wasn’t even peak season yet. Steve’s body was weary, and as he drank some much needed water he had a crazed thought about how he was still running. A month in, and he’d barely stopped moving. If he stopped, his brain kicked in.

Steve didn’t need creature comforts. He took to the road, driving in what he knew others would think of as an aimless fashion. It wasn’t aimless. The deserts drew him. Inexplicably, as his past experiences with those climes were not entirely good ones. Still, he stayed a week at Joshua Tree, spent most of it hiking in daylight, sitting beneath the stars at night. The stars were the same, and different. He found he missed the ever present salinity of the air. Just a little. He found he missed having someone next to him, figuratively poking at him to keep him out of his own head.

He heard from Tani often, texts here and there carefully not mentioning work, but also carefully not mentioning much else either. 

Junior sent him candids of Eddie. And _honu_ for some reason. A pair of feet burrowed in the sand. Junior was too much like him sometimes.

Lou called, always had stories to tell in his grandiose way.

Danny texted a lot that first week, said he missed him several times a day. It dwindled a bit after that, but not so much Steve was worried about his partner’s recovery.

Steve hadn’t been able to reply to any of them in more than one or two words, a grunt here and there to let Lou know he was listening. Too busy. So he told himself. He found it all bittersweet. He missed all of them, perhaps not in equal measure. But none of it swayed him.

He drove north, to Montana. 

H50H50H50

Montana had turned to a retread of Utah but with more ghosts, and then he’d moved on to Colorado. By the time he’d landed on Kono Kalakaua’s doorstep, he hadn’t shaved for two and a half weeks and couldn’t say for sure when he’d last bathed. Her face had been implacable except the barest wrinkle of her nose, a slight quirk of an eyebrow. She offered him her shower, a hot meal and her couch in that order, all of which he’d taken gratefully. 

Kono didn’t ask much of him, didn’t insist on dragging him around showing him any sights. Mostly, she worked and he stayed in her apartment. Cooked for her, kept the house tidy. Was there when she managed to crash at home. The routine became almost domestic. He liked it. Liked the thought of a sedate life like this. 

Cath came to rejoin him after several days, and they stayed for a bit in a hotel instead of at Kono’s. It felt a little like old times, and also like any port in a storm. Not groundbreaking, earthshattering, heartstopping love. He was a sap for wanting that anyway, Danny would say. He always smiled a little sadly when a Dannyism came to him. 

During Cath’s stay Steve noted little things about her that bothered him. Her hairbrush on the bathroom vanity, dark hairs falling out of it. She hogged the covers. Her feet were always cold. She almost always did what he wanted to do, no question. He had lived for years now with Junior, months with Danny. None of their odd habits irked him, even if he made a show of it with Danny for fun. Four days with the one who had gotten away… Steve was frustrated by that, but it was something he’d just have to get used to. He’d spent such a huge part of his life alone, it only made sense that it would take time to open up fully. He and Cath had a lot of history, some great and some not so great, but he generally enjoyed being with her, she was familiar and comforting in a way he couldn’t quite say why. 

Her visit was short, though. She had to get back, she said, duty called. He got it, but he didn’t quite get it anymore, too. When Cath kissed him goodbye to return again to Washington and leave him to his self-imposed mission, it felt different. Steve didn’t try to think much about it, choosing instead to live day to day. He went back to Kono’s, for as long as she was willing to put up with him.

He didn’t mind the quiet nights now, and started letting the quiet bleed into the days. For the first time, Steve thought maybe he was finding some actual rest. He read a lot, and took a lot of easy day hikes. He was alone, but not surrounded by the vast open sky which had, he had to admit, started to feel like it was ready to swallow him whole. He took up photography. Actual photography, with an actual camera he’d found at a pawn shop. Took a short two week class at a local community college. Thought about the sunlight, and plant life and angles of Hawaii and how they’d photograph. Imagined his friends’ faces in black and white, some of them. Others in vibrant color. 

Blue eyes popping against well-earned crow’s feet. 

“It hurt, you know,” Kono said.

Dinner tonight sat pleasantly, if heavily, in his stomach, carbs he didn’t need. Homemade pasta and sauce he’d learned by watching Danny. Kono studied him from across the table, a rare night home for her and he’d wanted to do something nice to thank her for letting him stay. He was leaving. Tomorrow, probably. The conversation had been negligible already, they’d caught up a month ago. Her words startled him out of his post meal reverie.

“Hmm?” Steve said. 

She picked up her glass of wine, swirled it and took a sip. Her eyes were dark, haunted. Steve had noticed that; she looked at times the way he had felt, was starting to not feel. They had always been very much alike, holding things too deeply, cordoning it off to deal with another day.

“When Adam and I …” She set her glass down, stood and moved to the big picture window in her living room. “When we split and he went back there, you all just welcomed him in. The only one who even called to see how I was was Danny. And it stung.”

“Kono.”

It had been years. Steve didn’t know why this was coming up as a topic, but knowing Kono it wasn’t random. He moved to stand next to her, took her elbow. He wanted her to know that they welcomed Adam in because he was physically there, but that he’d never once stopped thinking of her. She turned into him just slightly.

“It’s okay, really,” she said, shaking her head a little as if annoyed with herself. “I know what Adam told you, and from his point of view it’s true. At some point the work became my life and he felt like he didn’t have a space here. I got it then, I get it now.”

“He was really busted up,” Steve said, sounding stupid and a bit foolish to his own ears. Like he was somehow in Adam’s corner even now when Kono was telling him how much it had felt that way to her. “I mean…” 

“Of course he was.”

Kono raised both of her hands, covered her face with them for a second. She’d told him she was happy, that her job gave her fulfillment. And Steve knew that was true, but that darkness in her eyes … it was wearing on her.

“Kono, are you okay?”

She laughed at that, and it wasn’t bitter. She sounded like her old self, fresh off a surfboard on the beach. Tough, sure.

“I’m fine, really. This isn’t coming out like I thought. I wanted to tell you my perspective. I think it’s important for you to know,” Kono said. She paused, maybe to consider her next words. “In the end, all I wanted from Adam was for him to support me. I traveled the world, ran, hid, went to the ends of the earth for him when the Yakuza had a heavy price on his head. You know? I gave up my _life_ to do that. I don’t regret any of it for one second, either, that’s how much I love him.”

Steve furrowed his eyebrows. Love, not loved. Kono held up a hand to ward off anything he was going to say. He had to respect her style, as always.

“When I was quote unquote working too much, Adam couldn’t even do what you’ve done for the past month. Just stay. Just stay and be a living, breathing human being for me to decompress with at the end of a rough day.”

Steve still had her elbow. He squeezed it and remained silent. Adam _had_ framed it as Kono withdrawing from him.

“I think that’s what we all deserve, isn’t it? Equal footing. Someone who will love us so much they’ll never leave if things get too tough. Someone who will travel to the ends of the earth if need be. Someone we’d do the exact same for. It sounds cliché saying it out loud like that, but ultimately Adam and I were ever so slightly lopsided and it broke us.”

Steve opened his mouth to ask why she was sharing this, but she looked at him and rendered him again into silence. The women in his life were powerful creatures. He quirked a smile, and judging from her returning expression it didn’t land quite the way he’d hoped. She looked as though however _he_ looked made her sad.

“Think about the people you have in your life, Steve, what they’ve done for you. _How_ they’ve done for you will tell you everything you need to know. Just promise me you’ll do that,” Kono said.

H50H50H50

He went to Seattle next. It occurred to him fleetingly how he had yet to cross over to east of the Mississippi and dismissed the thought before it took hold. He had nothing but time. New Jersey could wait, he told himself over and over even though he’d never dream of going there without Danny. He wound up in a somewhat seedy extended stay hotel near the Space Needle, a place where people went to be nameless. He didn’t linger long in the city, it was too urban, but he stayed long enough to practice portraiture, mostly of the homeless population who weren’t shy about accepting twenty bucks in exchange for a photo of them carrying on with their lives. 

But there were too many sirens for him at his hotel, too many drug deals out the back windows in the alley for him to ignore forever. Try as Steve might, he couldn’t turn off the justice side of his brain completely. He drove west again, to the coastline and from there turned south, stopping to take pictures of rough, craggy beaches far colder than what he was used to, but beautiful in their own right. He reveled in the salt air.

He sent a rare selfie to the team as a group when he hit the north coast of Oregon, smiled when they all told him how great he looked. He was starting to feel like himself. Nearly guffawed when Danny called him a goonie, though the cheer flagged when Danny didn’t say he was missed, on the group text or separately. Steve had tentatively agreed to another meet up with Cath in Portland, but just before he was going to head inland he got a call from her.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Cath said. She sighed heavily. “I wish I could get out of this, but you understand how it is. Maybe you could come here instead?”

Sitting on a high viewpoint, massive pines behind him and a vast blue ocean in front of him, Steve closed his eyes and painted a picture of Cath in his mind. Her features, lovely, started to blend and morph until it wasn’t her face he saw, but Doris’. Cath and his mother. Their patterns, they were the same if their motivations different. To be fair, as far as Cath was concerned he wasn’t innocent; he had often used her affection for him to ask favors. Maybe comfortable wasn’t good enough. Maybe their relationship wasn’t balanced properly. 

He blamed Kono for this.

“No, it’s fine,” Steve said. “I know what you do has to come first.”

“No, it’s not …” Cath paused. Hesitating, or calculating. “I want to be there with you.”

If she did, though, she _would_. Others had literally followed him around the globe multiple times – one of them a direct result of Steve’s own choice to pick up Cath’s battle as his own. He had to admit, he had started to expect Danny (or anyone from the team) to pop out of the woodwork somewhere to surprise him. Or it was wishful thinking.

The only surprise he got right now was how he was at least a little relieved to have Cath bail on him.

H50H50H50

The irony of visiting old friends while he continued to keep contact with those on Hawaii to an occasional check in wasn’t lost on him. He thought maybe his internal compass was tuned to find seek them out. What Mary had said lingered with him, fueled by Kono’s words of wisdom. It only made sense when his trek down the coast had him stopping in San Francisco.

Steve showed up unannounced, but Chin Ho Kelly did not bat an eyelash at seeing him. He simply opened his arms and ushered him in, literally. He’d forgotten how grounding a hug from Chin could be, how the man who had often demonstrated badassery on par with the SEALs also had this aura of … mystical calm. Perhaps it was this which had drawn him to reconnect with his friend and former team member. He might have made Chin his first stop, but he didn’t think a few months ago he’d been ready.

He got similar hugs from Abby and Sara, the latter of whom had grown and changed to the point he barely recognized her. Her sweet temperament was the same, though, and they all welcomed him into their home despite his attempt to beg off and find a hotel. He was pleased for Chin; by all counts his life was perfect and his friend looked as content as he wished himself could be. 

Steve insisted on a tour of Chin’s task force headquarters, partially to puff out his chest in pride for his friend and partially to compare. Teams and resources, if he were going to be honest. It was the first time he’d had any real interest in anything that might tangentially remind him of why he’d burned out. It came as no shock to see that Chin ran a smooth operation, but it did come as a bit of one that Steve didn’t feel any sort of regret or longing to go back to that kind of life. He wasn’t opposed, but it felt like somehow now he had a real say in his own life. If he did to back to law enforcement, it would be because he wanted to. Not because of his dad, not his mom. 

Nearly forty-three and this was the first time he felt had more than just the appearance of control of his life. 

With Chin’s help, he found his way into a seldom-used darkroom at SFPD and under the guidance of a pro. He focused much of his energy developing the film he took, mostly watching and being mentored rather than doing the work. Some of his shots were shit, some were not terrible. He felt there was enough there that maybe, if nothing else, he’d found an outlet. With photography, he could choose how to see the world. A park bench was a park bench unless it was the shadows beneath it. It was something he could apply to many other aspects of his life, already was.

“Some of these are really good, Steve,” Chin said one evening after dinner as he sifted through the piles of pictures. “How’d you start this new hobby of yours, or should I say career?”

“Thanks, man,” Steve said, happy to have Chin’s approval. “It’s not going to be a career, not by any stretch. I don’t know, really, bought the camera on a whim. It gave me something to concentrate on. It’s really helped get me out of my head.”

“Makes sense. Focusing on what’s in front of you, not behind.”

Steve hummed his agreement. As always, Chin managed to pare things down to their essences. The more he focused the lens of the camera, the more focus he felt himself. Not that he’d ever lacked it. Until recently. Until Doris left him with one last mindfuck. Until the very thought of losing anyone else he loved made him long for his own death to end the pain of bearing that weight. Until the weight of the last ten years of doing just that had him running in the hopes he wouldn’t fall into that abyss. Running away from always running.

And little by little he was realizing that even though he still felt like the last ten years had been out of his hands, and that he had put the needs of others before himself, that it was all hopeless to the point he’d stopped feeling, there had also been a lot of good. People who had his back, no matter what. People who had suffered serious blows of their own. 

Like Chin, and here he was. 

Steve and Chin sat together in the living room, Abby and Sara off getting ready for the evening to wind down into story time, something Chin said with a pang that Sara was on this side of outgrowing. Said his girl now mostly did it for him and Abby, they all knew it and went along. As for himself, he felt a hint of envy for Chin’s life but it was colored with something else. Regret, maybe. He remembered how much he enjoyed the weekends Danny had Charlie, and Grace before that. 

He watched Chin’s face as he sifted through the photos, looked for traces of appreciation. Ultimately, the pictures were for him but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to be aesthetic to others as well. Steve had a healthy ego, as some people liked to remind him, but it was practical too. Knowing if what appealed to his senses wasn’t just him would make him better. Chin’s whole face softened when he got to the end of the pile, the shots Steve had taken of Chin, Abby and Sara. Abby and Sara elbow deep in batter, a baking project for their houseguest, mid-laugh. Puffs of flour dust captured mid-air. Pure joy. Pure fondness from Chin, in the same shot but off to the side observing the chaos. 

“This is perfect,” Chin said. “I’d like to keep this one.”

“Keep all of the family shots,” Steve said. “Keep any of them you like.”

Chin smiled and nodded, and kept looking through the photos. From the far end of the large apartment came soft, feminine voices. Steve had kept in touch with Chin more than Kono, but distance prevented truly understanding how good a choice it had been for the other man to leave all he knew for a new experience. A fresh slate; that was what he wanted for himself and Chin embodied it. 

“You know it doesn’t have to look like this,” Chin said out of the blue.

Steve must have cued Chin in to his thoughts with his expression because when he looked at Chin he found his friend had stopped examining photos and was instead studying him. If it were nearly anyone else, he might have been unnerved to have not noticed the attention. He flicked his eyes toward Abby and Sara’s voices.

“What, unmitigated happiness?” Steve said with a laugh to cover exactly how serious he was.

“Yeah. Happiness,” Chin said, smiling, but with a touch of sadness as well. It was the look of someone who had loved and lost, and had found love again but not at the same level. “The whole man/woman/child thing is amazing, obviously worked for me. But it isn’t the only way to achieve that feeling.”

“Yeah.” Steve wasn’t so sure, but then he thought of Mary and Joanie. Of Danny, Charlie and Grace. “Maybe.”

“I know you’ve had a rough time of it, Steve. I get it.” Chin clamped a hand on Steve’s knee and squeezed. “I know you’re looking for something god knows you deserve as much, if not more, than anyone.”

“Chin,” Steve said. “It’s been months. I just don’t know if it exists.”

“Oh, it exists,” Chin said, sounding for all the world like he knew this to be true, knew something Steve did not. “Try clearing your mind. When you close your eyes and think of what makes you happy. What do you see?” 

Chin Ho Kelly and the art of Zen. Steve almost chuckled and said it wasn’t that easy, but didn’t as Sara came bounding out of her bedroom and launched herself at Chin. They dissolved into a tickle fight, Abby soon piling on as well, leaving Steve to take in the joyful family moment. 

He took a couple of deep breaths, and closed his eyes.

H50H50H50

There were a great number of places in the world he’d like to see and could have gone to, but the allure of doing it alone had greatly diminished. Steve found himself filled with a new kind of restlessness. None of this had gone like he’d imagined it would, not that he’d had much of an idea in his mind when he’d fled. That was what his departure had been, he realized in hindsight, and was slightly embarrassed by it. 

At the heart of it, and now that he’d had the benefit of time and distance, he knew it was nothing to be ashamed about but he regretted not seeing that he wasn’t alone. That he hadn’t been alone for ten years, and had simply had his perception altered by too much tragedy in too short a time. His dad had been the beginning, but it wasn’t just that. Freddie. Deb. Joe. Even Doris, who he had loved despite her inability to be a relatable human being. He’d been in a tailspin since Joe had died in his arms, leading inexorably to a breaking point. Nearly losing Danny hadn’t been the catalyst for his need to get away, as he’d felt that pull at him for a solid year, but it had finally tipped the scale. The possibility of death as a facet of law enforcement careers had been too much given his history of loss. What happened to Danny was directly because of _him_ and that had sealed it.

Steve had finally made it east of the Mississippi, but he hadn’t landed in New Jersey. He still needed the right tour guide for that particular destination. He’d had to have a conversation in person, because he had mistakenly reignited some hope when he’d had no business engaging that way. He hadn’t been in the right frame of mind and, really, she should have known that as well. 

His talk with Cath hadn’t gone great, but it hadn’t gone terribly either. He knew he had made the right call when the hurt on her face lasted a millisecond before she schooled her expression, deadening her eyes. The move was so Doris-like, he didn’t know how he’d never connected the dots before. While Steve had loved his mother, he finally accepted that he had become too damaged from her to want to spend the remainder of his life with anyone who shared her traits. 

Cath had also had some choice words about how Doris had called ‘it’, and hadn’t wanted ‘it’ for him. The implication of ‘it’ being pretty clearly not Cath, but something left vague in a way that meant she thought he knew what ‘it’ was. All he actually knew was that her reactions made him see without a doubt he and Cath were better off as friends … though he wasn’t sure now even that was possible. Someday, perhaps, when the sharpness of her feelings dulled. He would welcome the friendship, as he always had done. 

_“Don’t mistake codependence for love, Steve.”_

Steve had left Washington with a heart that was both heavy and free. He wasn’t one to question his decisions, or hadn’t been before. But Cath’s final, sadly-delivered statement to him roiled round and round in his brain now. He needed to be careful and very, very sure of this. He tipped his head back, closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun. Was he a codependent, sad sack of a man after all? Even now, when he practiced the advice given by several people he trusted, he only had one thing in his mind. One answer. One person who had never wavered, not once.

No. Steve was not letting Cath and the ghost of Doris change what he knew to be true. 

Rapid tapping on the car window right next to his ear made him jerk, eyes fly open and heart start to pound. Steve looked over and found one very annoyed Danny Williams glaring at him, silent but gesturing somewhat rudely. He tried to grin as he turned the key in the ignition so he could roll the window down, but it was watery. Did grin when Danny’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief.

“Hey, Danno,” Steve said, implementing the rarely used nickname for this special occasion.

Steve had never seen a more beautiful sight. How he could question this at all, even for a heartbeat, was beyond him. The second he laid eyes on his partner, it was like something inside righted itself, and while he’d thought his return would have gone differently it was still what he’d hoped for, for a lot longer than he even knew. Danny looked amazing, the stupid haircut he’d last seen on him had gone in favor of a longer, softer look and he clearly had full use of both arms with the way they were swinging around. He seemed … thinner, though, which made Steve’s grin falter.

“Seriously. You disappear for months only to show up at my house _without bothering to tell me or anyone you were back and yes, I checked, I had time because you have been sitting in your truck for twenty-five minutes_ and all you can do is ‘hey, Danno’ me?” 

God, he’d missed this and hadn’t even had the capacity to realize how much. 

“Get your ass out of the truck,” Danny said.

Steve did, nearly tripping over his own feet. Laughed like a fool when Danny reached to steady him, just as he’d done for the past ten years. He folded himself around Danny, so damn glad when the hug was returned without hesitation. 

“Danny,” Steve said, wanting to say more but nothing else came out. 

Truthfully, Steve was never so glad to have been wrong in his life. The feeling of calm had begun in LA, boarding the plane, had increased exponentially the closer the flight got to landing and now he was filled with everything he’d been trying to find. Peace. Happiness. He didn’t know if he’d ever be up for rejoining Five-0, wasn’t sure he wanted to, and didn’t know anything about what his future held except that it had to include a new house with a darkroom. And Danny. Always Danny.

“Took you long enough,” Danny said.

Pulling back just enough to see, Steve searched Danny’s face and saw understanding there. As if Danny had known all along that he would end up here. A haphazard thought floated through his brain that maybe he’d been the only one who hadn’t.

“You knew.”

Danny shrugged, shook his head. Then nodded.

“I had reasonable suspicions,” Danny said, smiling with a hint of melancholy around the edges. This hadn't been easy on him, it was apparent. “I hoped.”

Steve leaned closer again then, brought his forehead down to rest it against Danny’s. Smiled when Danny’s hands moved, grasped him tightly by the biceps and they both shifted so their noses touched, breathing in deeply together.

“I really am sorry it took me this long,” Steve said after a moment. “But I'm here now and I promise I will never leave you again.”


End file.
